


birds of a feather

by useyourtelescope (thedreamygirl)



Series: for all the places I have been, I'm no place without you [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 5+1, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff and Humor, just so much fluff, partners with feelings, sort of a sequel but can also be read stand-alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 10:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3406751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedreamygirl/pseuds/useyourtelescope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Clarke was caught wearing Bellamy's clothes, and one time she wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	birds of a feather

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the same universe as my detective AU ‘do without you’ but it starts during the timeline of that fic and then finishes after - kind of like a ‘deleted scenes + epilogue/sequel’ if you will. So, while the other fic will provide good context for this one, you don’t actually have to read it for this fic to make sense. 
> 
> Two of the scenes in this are headcanons for the AU I had while writing the first fic, one of which was originally going to be included in it but in the end it didn’t fit, so it was fun to finish what I had and write the rest of this. This is basically all fluff, I’m not even sorry. (Seriously, so much fluff.) Feedback makes me happy so let me know what you thought!
> 
> Thanks to Lou for looking it over. Series title is from the song 'Cecilia & The Satellite' by Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness.

The first time is a mistake; one Clarke would insist (if she ever talked to anyone about it) was fuelled by a lot of yelling and her subsequent exasperation that her new partner was still not taking her seriously.

She’s only been working at the precinct a few weeks but already she can’t remember a time when going into work didn’t also mean having to deal with Detective Bellamy Blake. Considering that her job involves catching criminals Clarke thinks the fact that _he_ is currently the worst part of her day is pretty telling (the next time Jasper says she’ll get used to him, “promise”, she’s likely to punch something).

Her voice is a little hoarse when they come to some kind of agreement on their latest battle (and it was only about the order to interview their suspects in), and she takes a few swigs of water while she searches for her keys. “Okay, you go tell the Captain and I’ll – “

“What?” Bellamy looks up sharply from the file he’s closing, and shakes his head as if she’s the one being ridiculous. “Let’s just go, we shouldn’t waste time.”

“No,” Clarke practically hisses before standing up from her desk. “We have to tell the Captain first, he’ll want to know about this.” She doesn’t add that the Captain explicitly told them to update him only a few hours ago before he shut himself in his office (making him the only other person currently in the vicinity, since everyone else was either out working their cases or left in a hurry at the sight of the latest Griffin-Blake dispute). Watching Bellamy roll his eyes, she realises should have done.

“Well, just call him from the car,” he says with a shrug, his chair rolling backwards when he rises abruptly.

“No, we can tell him now, it’ll only take a minute. He’s not even on the phone,” Clarke adds when she looks through the partially open blinds and sees their commanding officer concentrating on his computer screen.

They’re both standing up and it’s not like he’s really that much taller than her, but he certainly makes it seem like it with the way he tilts his head before meeting her eyes. “You tell him then if you’re so worried.”

“You’re the one that’s meant to be lead on this,” Clarke points out (not that she’s bitter about it or anything), “he’ll wonder why I’m the one updating him.”

Bellamy sets his jaw and she thinks reminding him of his apparent superiority has worked (it’s certainly something he likes to bring up whenever possible) until he replies, “That’s right, I am, which means you’re meant to follow my direction.”

Clarke clamps her nails into her palm to stop herself from shrieking. “Not when you don’t follow protocol!”

Bellamy practically growls, but then – finally – barks “Fine!” and his messy black curls bounce a little on his forehead as he storms off to the Captain’s office. He manages not to jerk the door open too harshly, while Clarke angrily kicks her chair back under her desk once he’s closed it behind him.

She’s pulling a jacket down from the stand beside her when she notices Atom returning. Out of the corner of her eye she sees him drop into his desk chair on her left and she’s pushing her arms back into the sleeves when she realises he’s now staring at her. She’s spoken to him the least of her colleagues so far but she knows he and Bellamy are friends, which is more than enough information at this moment in time. Clarke stares back silently while she pulls her hair out from inside the jacket, but when his confused gaze remains on her, she can’t stop herself from roughly demanding, “What?”

Atom’s eyebrows shoot up, Clarke presumes at her tone, and he just mutters, “Uh, nothing,” before quickly rotating his chair the ninety degrees required to face his desk.

She huffs and reaches for her keys, wondering why she can only see the tips of her fingers peeking out of her sleeves, belatedly realising they are not _her_ jacket sleeves.

It’s all she can do not to throw the jacket onto Bellamy’s desk once she’s ripped it off her back. She turns back to the coat stand and yanks her jacket down (black not navy, leather not nylon) and starts zipping it up a little harshly. When Bellamy reappears, his slow closing of the Captain’s door behind him at odds with his obvious impatience, he immediately starts heading towards the coat stand until he notices the new location of his jacket. He turns it over in one hand, almost as if he’s checking that it’s definitely his, before he eyes Clarke suspiciously. Her eyes flicker to Atom who then actively looks away from them, apparently engrossed by the logging on screen of his computer. Clarke storms off to the car without addressing Bellamy’s unspoken question.

By the time Bellamy catches up with her in the parking lot she’s already resolved not to think of it again. The sight of the jacket, a much better fit on her partner’s broad frame, reminds Clarke not only of her mistake but the witness, so she picks another argument with Bellamy to distract herself.

(Atom never brings it up, not even in jest once he and Clarke consider each other friends, the memory of her steely blue eyes always enough to keep him in check.)

* * *

She’s been at the precinct for a few months now, and Clarke’s learnt there’s a lot more to Bellamy than she originally thought, but she still doesn’t know what to say when he takes the sweater off his back and offers it to her like that’s normal.

They’ve just caught a new case, a rather messy affair that will probably require a lot of hard work and late nights; right now however, Clarke is leaning over the sink in the ladies toilets of the hotel where the crime took place, alternating between scrubbing at and patting down the stain on her sweater.

“Clarke? You in there?” Even through the closed heavy door she can tell that it’s Bellamy.

“Yeah!” Clarke replies, glancing in that direction on instinct. “Everything okay?”

“Ark News have turned up outside, they’re waiting for our statement.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, then catches sight of her appearance again in the large mirror and sighs. “Can you do it?”

There’s a pause as her words sink in. “What?” he adds, and she can’t really fault the confusion in his voice. As much as they’ve started to work well together she’s been quite particular about fulfilling her role in the cases where she’s taken lead. This happens to be one of them, so technically she should be the one speaking to the news team. “Is something wrong?” he wonders, and she wonders how fussy she’s been for him to sound almost worried.  
  
“It’s not a big deal,” she says, glancing between the blood-stained sweater in her hands and the white tank top she’s still wearing that’s now slightly see through in patches thanks to the overzealous hotel taps, “I just can’t give the statement.”

After another pause, “Uh, do you want me to get Monroe?”

Clarke laughs, as she dabs at the stain again. “I’m really fine, Bellamy.”

“Are you sure?”

Clarke sighs, realising he is not going to let up without an explanation and it’s not really one she wants to shout through the door when anyone could walk by. Plus, as much as she gets on with Monroe, weirdly she feels totally at ease opening the door to Bellamy in her current state. Anyway, it’s also the quicker option. “Look, just come in.”

She can tell from the way his voice raises an octave that Bellamy is unsure what to make of her request. “What?”

“It’s only me in here, it’s fine.”

After a few moments the bathroom door cracks open. She holds back a laugh as Bellamy peers one eye through the slight gap, only stepping in completely and closing the door behind him when he’s confirmed through the mirror spanning the wall that Clarke stands alone at the sinks while the three stall doors behind her are wide open and empty. Once he’s taken a few steps closer to her he finally notices her dishevelled appearance and she realises with mild amusement that after a quick sweep his eyes seem to get stuck on the wet area that reveals a portion of her black bra. His eyes widen ever so slightly before his head turns sharply sideways.

“So,” he begins, clearing his throat, “what happened to you?” He manages to sound surprisingly casual, and looks it too with the way he’s gently resting his hips against the counter, back to the mirror. The fixed turn of his head decidedly away from her tells another story.

“After you and Monroe left to interview the other guests I had a bit of an incident,” Clarke explains, “Myles and I bumped into each other and…” she pauses slightly but there’s no good way to put this, “managed to fall into the pool of blood.” It was definitely not her finest hour as a detective, though she wasn’t sure whether she was more annoyed at herself or the young officer. ( _It was totally more his fault though. But Myles had seemed mortified about the whole thing. Of course,_ he _had managed to come out of it with only a small bloodstain on his sleeve._ )

She’s still replaying the events in her mind when Bellamy tuts, and she can tell he’s holding back a laugh. “Tampering with the evidence, Griffin. And on your first red ball as lead detective –“

“Yeah, yeah, don’t remind me,” she says, trying not to sound too grumpy. She doesn’t mention that the blood got in her hair as well as her clothing, though he can probably see the portion of her hair that looks a darker blonde now she’s washed it out. “Anyway I obviously can’t go on camera looking like this, so you just do it.”

Bellamy cocks his head to the side and glances at her, but quickly as if he was reminding himself how bad it looked while also trying not to stare. Then he suddenly straightens and takes off his open jacket, places it on the counter next to where her stained sweater sits before he wordlessly pulls his own sweater off.

Clarke feels unexpectedly flustered at the sight ( _calm down, he’s still wearing a t-shirt_ ) and her mouth gapes a little when he wordlessly drops the sweater onto her arm and pulls his jacket back on.

“You don’t have to do that,” she says belatedly, eyes darting between his face and the offered clothing as he tries to flatten his mussed up hair to little effect.

“It’s not that cold,” he shrugs, even though the way he zips his jacket all the way up suggests otherwise. “See you out there?”

Clarke nods, managing to awkwardly call out, “Thank you,” just in time for him to jerk his head in acknowledgement before shutting the door behind himself.

The thin sweater is unsurprisingly large on her, but in a way that it looks like the intended style. Clarke thinks the warm red hue of the garment suited his darker skin better than it does her pale face, but it goes well with her black jeans and once she’s given her hair a short blast under the hand dryer she actually seems presentable.

She’s not sure if she can save her original sweater but it was an old favourite so she balls it up in her hands before leaving the bathroom, intending to stash it in the back of the car before facing the cameras. Clarke’s barely reached the lobby when a relieved Monroe catches up with her.

“There you are! Did Bellamy find – “ Monroe stops short as Clarke turns round to face her, the look on Monroe’s face suddenly reading ‘ _Clearly, he did_ ’.

“I, uh, just got into a bit of a mess,” Clarke begins and raises the crumpled sweater in her hands by way of explanation, slightly embarrassed now she’s under Monroe’s scrutiny even though there was nothing untoward about what happened.

“So Bellamy just gave you his clothes?”

Clarke supposes she can’t completely fault the incredulity in Monroe’s tone. Back when they first became partners Clarke would have said the only thing Bellamy would have willingly given her was a cold. Still, it had been a while since she realised Bellamy was more generous than she (and probably most people, considering Monroe’s expression) gave him credit for and she feels oddly defensive about it.

“It’s not like he’s walking around topless or anything,” is probably not the best comeback, but it’s what she blurts out. When Monroe just laughs, Clarke adds, “He’s just lent it to me, so I can give the statement.”

Clarke’s prepared for more questions, but to her credit, Monroe simply nods and they easily slip into talking about the case as they exit the lobby together.

(Clarke’s only confirmation that the younger detective ever remembered the event comes a while later, by way of a slight raise of Monroe’s eyebrows when Clarke and Raven arrive to help her move, and Clarke’s choice of comfortable clothes is a decidedly large red sweater over leggings.)

* * *

The third time could possibly be considered theft, although there was certainly a lack of motive and intent and Clarke wasn’t sure the item had even been noticed, never mind reported missing.

She’s over a month into her assignment on the task force and the weather’s recently taken a bit of a turn. The cold hasn’t set in yet, but the wind has been on the rise and Clarke’s mass of blonde curls is no longer enough to shield her neck from the chill.

So when Lincoln tells her they better make a move if they want to be in position for their next stakeout Clarke searches through the drawers of her temporary desk, recalling that she’d counted a woolly scarf amongst the items she’d brought with her when she’d cleaned out her drawers at the precinct. She finds it in her bottom drawer, the thick dark stripes peeking out from underneath the tub of hand cream she always forgets is there and two half-used boxes of aspirin.

Clarke wraps it around her neck quickly, and shrugs a jacket on over just in time for Lincoln to turn around after having donned his own.

Instead of turning straight to the exit, he looks curiously at her for a moment. Clarke thinks she spies what might be the start of a smile playing on the corner of his lips, which is too rare an occurrence for her not to wonder about. The pause is long enough for Clarke to notice the scarf around his neck and has to glance down to verify that it is indeed identical to the one adorning hers.

It takes another minute before she realises the scarf is actually Bellamy’s, and she spends the drive trying to figure out how it came to be in her possession. By the time they pull up at their location she’s no closer to an answer; Clarke recalls seeing her former partner wearing it on a few occasions and accepting it as something that was hers when she packed up her old desk, but nothing in between. She could always ask Bellamy about it, but they still haven’t really talked properly since she started her assignment, only some texts, and she’s not even sure how that text would go (‘ _Hey Bellamy, did you give me your scarf by any chance? Cause if not, I’ve just taken it!_ ’). Plus, that would mean drawing attention to it

Clarke wears the scarf home, making sure to take one that is definitely her own into work the next day. If Lincoln does notice the red on her cheeks when he walks in that morning wearing his again, he at least doesn’t act like it.

(In fact, Lincoln never suspected that the scarf was anything other than Clarke’s own and merely found it a mildly amusing coincidence that his colleague shared the same taste in scarves before promptly discarding such trivial information from his mind. For a while after, Clarke tries a lot harder to do the same with much less success.)

* * *

She’s back at the precinct now, but since she’s been partnered with Raven Clarke definitely doesn’t have an official reason to be rifling through Bellamy’s drawers and removing his property without permission. However, it is bloody freezing and she knows Bellamy keeps a pair of gloves in there so that’s her excuse (she didn’t say it was a good one).

The Captain had insisted she work on a presentation regarding her recent assignment so Clarke had dressed for spending most of the day inside, but she was not prepared for the current environmental conditions. Her new desk opposite Raven was directly underneath one of the heating vents, which had been a nice comfort, until that morning when the system broke down and started blasting out only cold air. When Raven started tinkering with it Clarke had been hopeful it would work as the other detective usually seemed to have a knack for that sort of thing. Unfortunately for Clarke, the current problem was beyond even Raven’s abilities. She’d managed to get the damn thing to turn off at least, but the problem couldn’t be fixed without the right parts; parts that the Captain informed them would not be turning up until the following day.

“Unbelievable,” Raven mutters after the Captain had gone back to his office and closed the door behind him.

“I know,” Clarke agrees, rubbing away the goosebumps on her arms. “I’d have thought someone could take a look at it today.”

Raven shakes her head. “I meant that they won’t just replace it. They’re always complaining about spending, but parts for that old thing are probably expensive enough as it is. It last got fixed right before you started here the first time around; hopefully whoever they send tomorrow does a better job.”

Clarke sighs, folding her arms tight against her chest. “What are we supposed to do until then?”

“Wear more layers,” Raven states simply before zipping her hoodie closed and returning her attention to her computer. “And make sure Jasper doesn’t open any windows.”

Clarke is already wearing all the layers she has brought with her and has bundled her hair inside her jacket to act as a makeshift scarf but what she can’t quite manage is typing on her keyboard, which is unfortunate when that’s the only thing she needs to do at the moment.

Anyway, she’s never seen Bellamy wearing the gloves. They just came to her attention when she sat opposite him and he opened his top drawer looking for other things so she figures she’s actually doing a good thing even by using them – or at least that’s what Clarke tells herself when she grabs her chance to sneak over to his desk while Raven is distracted. The woolly hat she discovers hidden underneath them is a bonus and in a moment of weakness pulls that on too, but the additional few seconds of decision-making are enough for Raven to return from the printer in time to catch her in the act.

“Are you stealing Bellamy’s stuff?”

“No!” Clarke insists, shutting the drawer quickly. Under Raven’s amused gaze she slinks back down in her chair, pulling the hat firmly over her pink ears and rubbing her now gloved hands together.

Raven sits down in her chair as Clarke’s fingers start moving on the keyboard again. “Really?”

“I’m just borrowing…it’s not like he’s currently using them or anything. This is your fault anyway,” Clarke adds a little petulantly, “You insisted you could fix the heating.”

Raven looks at her slyly from behind her desk. “I don’t think you can blame me for your weird fetish.”

“It’s not a fetish!” Clarke squeals, feeling her face take on a darker flush now for a completely different reason. “I just knew where he kept his gloves.”  
  
“Whatever you gotta tell yourself Griffin,” Raven says with a smirk.

Clarke looks down at her desk a little shamefaced and considers returning them, but there doesn’t seem much point now; in fact, it would probably be worse than if she just stuck with it. So, she keeps them on and does her best to ignore the looks Raven sends her way over the next half an hour, until Bellamy returns, Miller hot on his tail as they head to their desks.

“You cold, Clarke?” Miller calls out, and chuckles when she turns to look at him and he spies her still red nose.

“It’s freezing in here!” she exclaims, belatedly remembering she meant to put the items back before they returned.

“It’s not that bad,” Miller shrugs.

Clarke doesn’t want to draw too much attention to her appearance, but can’t stop herself from complaining, “You’re still wearing all your outside layers. And you weren’t the one sat under the vent when it was going crazy with cold air.”

She looks away from Miller when he sits down, shaking his head with amusement (though notably doesn’t remove his jacket) and accidentally catches Bellamy’s gaze. To Clarke’s confusion Bellamy only sends her a friendly smile before he turns his head back to his work. She can’t tell if that means he doesn’t mind her borrowing his stuff or he hadn’t even realised, and it bothers Clarke that the urge to know the answer is a lot stronger than her resolve to finish this presentation.

Raven’s looking at her when she turns her chair back to face her desk, but it’s more neutral now and her friend generously chooses to continue with the sly glances and comments from before. (At least until a few months later when Bellamy and Clarke are officially an item, after which Raven resumes teasing her partner on a regular basis.)

* * *

The fifth time is the most surprising and by far the most embarrassing; not so much because she’s wearing Bellamy’s t-shirt, but because that’s _all_ she’s wearing.

“Forget your key?” she asks with a laugh, opening the door to his apartment, only to stop abruptly when she sees the person on the other side. They have some similar features but it is definitely not Bellamy.

“Hi. You must be Octavia,” Clarke says awkwardly, recognising her from the pictures.

“Hi,” the younger girl replies, dark eyes wide in surprise only for an instant before a small smile spreads on her face as she takes in Clarke’s appearance. “You must be Clarke.”

“Yeah,” Clarke states, wondering what is appropriate to say to the younger sister of your former partner-slash-current colleague-slash-sort of boyfriend (they haven’t exactly labelled it yet, but she feels pretty confident that she and Bellamy are on the same page) the first time you meet her.

“I was just popping by to pick up some stuff I left here. I didn’t realise Bell had company or else I would have called first,” Octavia explains.

“That’s okay. He just popped out to get some food. Uh, come in,” Clarke finally adds, cause she figures she should even though it’s not her apartment and she is not at all dressed for visitors. “Bellamy should be back soon.”

Octavia nods and Clarke steps back to let her in, pulling on the garment a little as she shuts the door.

“So I’ve heard so much about you, it’s great to finally meet you in the flesh,” Octavia says, the sentiment clearly genuine, though Clarke can’t help but blush at the slight smirk on Octavia’s face when she finishes her sentence.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, too,” she manages to say evenly. “Do you want some coffee?”

“I’d love some.”

“Great, um, why don’t I put some more clothes on first?” Clarke suggests, tugging on the t-shirt again, but it’s not much use.

Octavia smiles and to her credit it seems very polite. “Sure, I’ll make myself comfortable,” she responds, gesturing to the living room behind her.

Clarke nods intending to briskly walk back to Bellamy’s bedroom and just pull on her jeans or Bellamy’s sweatpants, whatever she finds first. As much as she’d prefer her own top, she needs a shower first and leaving Octavia by herself for the time that would take seems rude. Besides she’s already seen her like this so it’s not like it can get any worse. However, before she can make a move her eye gets caught by the sight of dark purple peeking out from between Bellamy’s light grey couch cushions.

She flushes instantly when she realises what it is, and Octavia can probably tell because Clarke suspects her bare legs are just as splotchy red as her face. “Why don’t you wait for me in the kitchen?” Clarke proposes.

Octavia looks curious but complies and walks past Clarke towards the kitchen. Once she’s safely out of the way Clarke hurries into the living room and plucks the item off the cushion, discovering a few more things she’s rather Octavia didn’t find behind the couch. As she scampers back into the bedroom with the items Clarke really hopes that when Octavia had initially looked towards the living room she hadn’t noticed Clarke’s bra lying there.

(Octavia is kind enough to wait three weeks before admitting that she did.)

* * *

 

It’s Sunday evening, nearly the end of their last free weekend together for a while since Bellamy starts a different shift pattern on Tuesday so they should be making the most of it, but instead they’re having – well, Clarke wouldn’t call it an argument, not after the loud, angry drawn-out fights they had back when they first met, but it’s definitely a difference of opinion. Bickering would perhaps be the word she would use, if it didn’t sound a little slight to her mind – and _slight_ is precisely how she would describe Bellamy’s reaction to that morning’s incident.

“I can’t believe we’re talking about this again. It really wasn’t that bad,” Bellamy insists, not for the first time that day, tilting his head towards her from his side of the bed.

“She’s your _sister_ , I want her to like me,” Clarke points out, burrowing her head deeper into the pillow.

Bellamy just shrugs (another thing he’s done a few times since his sister left). “Octavia’s turned up at mine to find way worse, believe me.” There’s a slight pause as his words sink in for both of them. “That was the wrong thing to say, wasn’t it?”

“Yep!” Clarke starts to roll over away from him, but his arm snakes out and wraps itself around her waist to prevent her moving away, settling underneath her thin tank top. She thinks he deserves more of a fight on this, but she’s got to be up early and he’s warm and it’s not like he hasn’t already told her about most (probably all) of those times already. Still, when she turns back round she leans over and quickly grabs the remote from where it’s landed further down the bed by his feet.

“Hey!” he protests, but she’s already changing the channel.

“If you’re going to be like this, then I get to choose what we watch.” She doesn’t really care, they haven’t been paying much attention to the television anyway, but she just picks the first program she likes that she knows he doesn’t.

Bellamy looks amused, but doesn’t protest, he just leans his head down a little closer to her ear. “What I meant to say is that my sister does like you.”  
  
Clarke smirks, dropping the remote behind her shoulder. “You’re just saying that so I stop complaining.”

“No, I’m not. O is not so great with tact,” he says sincerely. “She wouldn’t have stayed to chat for so long if she didn’t like you.”

It cheers Clarke up a little bit, but she’s not swayed yet. “I thought she stayed because she liked making you feel uncomfortable in front of me.”

“Well, she definitely stayed for that too,” Bellamy nods, the sudden serious look on his face at odds with just how messy his dark curls had become, and it makes Clarke giggle. “And it didn’t help that you seemed to enjoy her embarrassing stories about me quite a bit.”

“They were pretty funny,” Clarke says with a small smile as her right hand curls on his arm underneath the sleeve of his t-shirt.

“ _But_ I could also tell that she liked talking to you. – Also, she texted me saying she wanted to have us over at her apartment for dinner sometime.”

“What?” Clarke exclaims, shooting up out of bed and Bellamy’s embrace. “When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just told you,” Bellamy counters, leaning up on one elbow.

Clarke rolls her eyes and folds her arms, sitting back against the headboard. “I mean why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“She texted while you were in the shower and I forgot. Come on, Clarke, it’s not a big deal.”

Clarke sighs and part of her brain tells her, he is, in fact, probably right. But this current development in their relationship is still pretty new and she wants it to work and she knows how much Octavia means to him. She’s filed away all the things he’s told her about Octavia so Clarke had plenty of conversation starters, but she’d been so flustered after the way they met she forgot most of it. She hadn’t even remembered to ask Octavia about her Europe trip until she’d mentioned it herself. But, Bellamy didn’t seem to get that so Clarke settles for saying, “But I wanted to make a good impression and instead I open the door to her half naked –“

“How come you never open the door for me like that?” Bellamy pouts, but Clarke is not ready to let herself be taken in by the adorable jut of his lower lip.

“I’m serious Bellamy, you weren’t there. That t-shirt literally only just covered my ass. How can you not get why I’d be even a little embarrassed by that?”

Bellamy shrugs again. “You’ve got great legs,” and his hand starts a trail up her thigh to punctuate the statement until she swats it away.

“Shut up,” she says, but her mock serious tone is seriously undermined when she bursts into giggles straight after. She doesn’t mean to, but Bellamy has started tickling her, one hand feather-light on her skin just underneath the hem of her shorts – or his shorts, she corrects mentally, _damn it_. “Bellamy!” She tries to fight back through her giggles as his other hand tickles where her hip juts out from the waistband, but he’s not as ticklish as she is and Clarke only manages to scratch at the hem of his boxers or pull on his t-shirt, causing him to laugh at her.

“This is so not fair,” she says, still laughing as she slides back down the bed, tired from the effort, until her head is back on the pillow and Bellamy is hovering over her.

He stops abruptly, moving his fingers so that they now rub soothing circles over the skin they were previously teasing, and lowers his head closer to hers. His nose bumps against Clarke’s when he whispers, “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Jerk,” Clarke whispers back, but she’s grinning, making it even less of an insult.

He smirks at her, before his eyes shut as he moves to close the remaining distance between their faces until –

“I can’t wait to tell Jasper what Octavia said about the squirrel and how you – “

Bellamy’s eyes snap back open and he moves backward a fraction of an inch. “Are you seriously thinking about Jasper right now?”

Clarke beams up at him innocently. “It’s a funny story. I think everyone at the station will love it.”

“You are not telling anyone at work about that story.”

“Hey, that’s not fair. At least let me tell Jasper and Raven.”

“No.”

“Come on, it’s really cute. I want to tell everyone we know.” She pouts and Clarke can tell from the look on his face that he is more susceptible to this tactic than her, but he laughs and shakes his head.

“Definitely not.”

“How about a trade?” Clarke offers.

Bellamy looks intrigued. “What kind of trade? Please tell me there are equally hilarious stories in Clarke Griffin’s childhood past?”

“No, unlike you, I was a model child.” When Bellamy opens his mouth, clearly ready to argue this point, Clarke continues, “I had a different trade in mind. You let me tell the story and I will give you back your shorts.”

Bellamy’s eyebrows raise before his lips curve into a slow smile, one that he presses into her collarbone, causing Clarke’s eyelids to flutter closed. “But you never give me back my clothes,” he murmurs against her skin.

Clarke wants to complain, but remembers the striped scarf that sits on top of her jackets on the back of her front door and the woolly hat that lives in her drawer at work. Not to mention the red sweater that’s always near the top of her main clothes drawer at home because she pulls it out whenever it’s too cold for just a t-shirt but not cold enough to turn the heating on. Clarke figures she can’t really argue with that.

“Well,” she says, “you’ve never asked.”

He chuckles, a low vibration against her neck. “I didn’t realise that would have worked.”

 _No, actually, it probably wouldn’t have_ , Clarke thinks as he presses a soft kiss against the hollow of her throat, making her shiver. “So can I tell the story or what?” she asks before he can distract her some more and Bellamy laughs in response.

(Clarke tells the story at the precinct the next day and the shorts never leave Bellamy’s apartment. Bellamy decides this isn't much of a compromise when she’s the only one who wears them and takes his scarf back next chance he can, though they both know this is an empty gesture since the current spring weather may as well be summer. By the time its cold enough to wear it again Clarke has all but moved into Bellamy’s apartment and considers his entire wardrobe fair game. Bellamy finds he doesn't have a problem with this arrangement.)


End file.
